I would have to say that i have never in all the 30 years of fishing Putah experienced such sh---y or should i say crappie fishing!I'm happy these last few days to even get a grab!I'm not catching or even seeing the small 5 to 8" fish that are normally so pleantyful this time of year,this really worries me and it frustrates me that I really don't know why.Hopefully our non profit Putah Creek Trout group will turn things around.
Although i have only fly fished for a few years, before i had fished putah for many years and i have to agree, I have never seen it so slow. I've caught one decent fish since mid december. It is slooooooowwww, I have also not seen much insect ativity. So these days I've found much better fishing just one hour up the road at the yuba.
...I think that family of otters has to be good for a few thousand trout annually that would other wise would still be in there. I have nothing against wildlife but I think it's just a fact that they have contributed to the lower number of holdovers. Just my $.02.
I too have been blanked the last few times I have been out to the Creek. I think the culprit is the sediment blanketing the creek bed. I suspect the sediment has choked out the aquatic insects and may have forced the fish to move into Lake Solano to forage for bait fish. I don't recalling seeing any notable insect hatches lately.
The recent increase in flows to 530 cfs has had some effect on the fishing, but it has been OK. The fish are moving around and adjusting to the flows. The flow chart looks like a set of stairs. As for the bugs they are hatching pretty consistently between 6 and 8 PM. There are a million midges. A few caddis and a few yellow stones. Then there is a big hatch of size 20 mayflies late (Tricos or PMDs I think). The fish are sipping spinners late in the evening.
I too have noticed a good hatch of midges,sporadic caddis and yellow sallies but one bug which is a longtime Putah staple of which I have only seen a few here and there is the BWO.I noticed a reduction in the numbers of these adults over the last year or so.And I too agree that the otters have a real negative impact on the fish numbers,I started seeing otters on the creek about 6-7 years ago.As far as the siltation in the creek,this happens off and on throughout the years and I personally think it may have a short-term impact but we normally get flows high enough to wash most of the muck downstream.Which creates its whole set of other problems for the delta region.